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The campaign advisers assigned to prepare Palin for media interviews and the veep debate . . . simply didn't trust her to perform adequately in those settings. She would need weeks of intense training and study. They were wrong, and at Palin's expense. . . .Keeping Palin away from the media -- except for high-stakes network interviews -- was 180 degrees the opposite from what the McCain campaign should have done, as I said at the time.
It should have been obvious she could handle the media.
If, on the day her selection was announced in Ohio, they would have put her into an impromptu half-hour press conference, then the "beat" reporters covering the campaign wouldn't have had time to prepare "gotcha" questions, and the pundits wouldn't have been able to claim the campaign was "hiding" Palin.
A press conference is actually easier to handle than a one-on-one interview (the kind Palin did with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric) because if you get a question you don't like, you just make a wisecrack and then, "Next question." Palin could have handled that without any problem.
But there is a mindset among today's GOP operatives that the successful media strategy is to limit reporters to covering staged and scripted events, and at all costs to kept the press away from the candidate. This defensive, controlled-access policy has the inevitable effect of empowering the campaign operatives and disempowering the candidate. It is the campaign manager (or press spokesman) who is making the decisions of which reporters to talk to and what to say.
This defensive/controlled strategy allows a worthless hack like Tucker Bounds to get himself booked on CNN and become the face and voice of the campaign, rather than letting the candidate speak for himself.
This strategy -- which has been the standard playbook with GOP operatives for years -- creates a radical disconnect between Republican politicians and the media. You can't develop relationships with people you never talk to. Reporters need access to do their jobs, and they naturally tend to become hostile toward any source who is perpetually unavailable to them.
George Allen is one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet, but during his 2006 Senate campaign, his staff wouldn't let reporters anywhere near Allen. So when "macaca" hit, Allen had no friends in the press who could help him.
None of the bigtime Republican "media strategists" has ever worked a day as a reporter, and it shows.
If, on the day her selection was announced in Ohio, they would have put her into an impromptu half-hour press conference, then the "beat" reporters covering the campaign wouldn't have had time to prepare "gotcha" questions, and the pundits wouldn't have been able to claim the campaign was "hiding" Palin.
ReplyDeleteYou mean cunning traps like can you name any SCOTUS decision or newspaper you read ?
You think the problem with this was that she was given too little exposure to the press and that this gave reporters too much time to come up with real challenging questions like those eh.
Well, nobody can accuse you of being honest with yourself.
What is it with the KiddieCorps thing, anyway?
ReplyDeleteTo me the most important part of that piece you linked was this quote: "I would love to promote the party ideals if we're going to live out the ideals and maybe allow other American voters to understand what the principles of the party are," she says. "We've got to be assured we have enough people in the party who will live out those ideals and it's not just rhetoric. Otherwise, I'd be wasting my time. There are a lot of things I would and should be doing."
ReplyDeleteThat's the sound of an actual conservative within the Republican party. That is exactly what I want from a candidate - her weaknesses, and they are real, pale in importance to that sense of principle. The rest is a matter of learning and proving herself, she'll do that.
Dead On. Palin is too great an asset to have been sequestered, Also constantly giving interviews to low level reporter's would have kept Her sharp and polished for the the big dogs.
ReplyDelete